Future Shop's "Sale"

How does Future Shop keep their prices low? Volume? Nope. Bait'n'switch.

I went into the store on the afternoon of March 21st. I asked a sales person if they had a laptop with a particular video card. I was directed to the Gateway Intel Centrino Duo T2300 1.67GHz Laptop (MX6708). The price was $1399.99. The noteworthy stats on the accompanying sticker were as follows:

- 128 MB video card
- 256 MB of RAM

The salesperson told me that the stats on the laptops they had in the store were better than the label. Instead they were :

- 256 MB video card
- 512 MB of RAM

I was surprised, but suspicious. When I asked to start up the actual laptop that I intended on buying to see if the stats of the model I would purchase matched the stats of the display model they demonstrated, another salesperson interrupted and they that the model on display was the "platnium" model and then removed the shelf sticker. At that point, I grew more suspiscious and left.

I feel that Future Shop placed a different model or a variant on display than that which they would actually sell to customers. If I obtained that model and found that it matched the advertised stats and not those demonstrated, I would have had little recourse as it would have been the word of the salesman vs. myself.

Have you been screwed too? Share your tale of woe with Industry Canada. There are big cash prizes... well, sort of. Instead of you getting money, scummy retailers can get big fines. You know what they say, "It's not enough that I succeed; you must fail."
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/internet/index.cfm?itemID=258&lg=e